i will live this life over and over (if only so i can find you)
by Someone aka Me
Summary: "The first time he is born, the ritual is to pluck a flower at age 15. The petals come off one by one, and the last petal ends on "meet me not." He will not meet his soulmate in this lifetime. In that first lifetime, his name is Jeremiah. He lives 25 years and finds a war to throw himself into. He dies. He is born again."


Assignment 3: Gardening: **Task 4 - Daffodil:** Write an Immortal!AU or Reincarnation!AU

Romance Awareness Day 20: Instead of removing flower petals for "loves me, loves me not" the flower petals dictate whether you'll meet in this lifetime ("meet me, meet me not") and it's forever accurate.

* * *

The first time he is born, the ritual is to pluck a flower at age 15. The petals come off one by one, and the last petal ends on "meet me not."

He will not meet his soulmate in this lifetime.

In that lifetime, his name is Jeremiah. He lives 25 years and finds a war to throw himself into.

He dies.

He is born again.

…

The second time he is born, his name is Eli. He is sixteen when he plucks his ritual flower. The last petal ends on "meet me not."

He finds a war even faster this time.

He dies.

He is born again.

…

The third time, she doesn't even make it two weeks into the war. Her name is Elizabeth, for souls have no gender, but she still wants to fight, even though the world does not want to let her.

She tells one person, a person she trusts, and she is betrayed.

She dies.

He is born again.

…

He fights for the Greeks, for the Romans, for the Egyptians, for his tribe, for his family, for his own. He fights in two world wars, in too many civil wars to count.

He lives so many lifetimes. Jeremiah. Eli. Animkii. Ifa. James. Mary-Ellen. Siobhan. Ivan. Rachel. Kannika.

He plucks so many flowers. Indigo, red, blue. Roses, tulips, hyacinths.

He ends, so many times, on meet me not.

So he fights.

He throws himself off cliffs, in front of bullets.

Maybe it's reckless. Maybe it's stupid.

But there will be other lives. There will be more chances. There will be births and deaths and rebirths again.

And the petals keep telling him _no_.

The petals keep telling him _not yet_.

…

In 1972 he is born again.

His name is Charlie.

He is sixteen years old when he plucks the petals off of his flower.

It ends on "meet me."

For the first time in a hundred lifetimes, it ends on "meet me."

His soulmate is here, in this lifetime, and Charlie is going to meet him.

He doesn't ask for a war. For the first time, he's not seeking one out. He's working with dragons because the need for adrenaline is deep in his bones, deep in his soul from millenia of fighting, but he's not looking for a war.

The war finds him anyway.

He's a wizard, this time. He's been a wizard before, once, centuries ago. He thinks his name was Emiline. The information from his past lives is there, but hazy.

A wizard named Voldemort comes for his family, and for his world.

Charlie cannot let it stand.

And in the aftermath, in the ashes of a place he once called home, he meets a boy.

He meets a boy who is seventeen years old, who is tired and broken and has made all the wrong choices. Who sees the consequences of those choices on his wrist in dark ink.

A boy who wants so badly to make the right choices.

The war ends and the world crumbles and they are left to put it back together, and the boy becomes a man and he wants to work with dragons.

He wants redemption, but he also wants to flee the looks, the judgement.

He moves to Romania, and Charlie finds him again.

Charlie finds him, the way Charlie will always find him in every lifetime after this, the way Charlie was always meant to find him.

And they fall in love.

And Charlie knows, beyond the faintest shadow of doubt, that this is what he spent millenia searching for. This is why he waited. Their souls missed each other on this Earth over and over and over again.

But it was worth it.

It was worth it, for this.

* * *

Writing Month/Dragons: 563

Auction: Character: Charlie, 55 coins

Romance Awareness: Day 20

Prompt of the Day: Trait: The Dark Mark

Debate: Starting a relationship, "Death"

Trope of the Month: Crossgen, Prompt 3. Word: Information

Lyric Alley: 21. We are bursting through the barricades

Em's Emporium: 11. Emiliya (Emiliya Wolfe): (au) historical. Alt — (quote) "It's always easier to resolve conflicts face to face."

Angel's Arcade: 15. Noob Saibot: (color) indigo, (au) reincarnation, (theme) betrayal

Chocolate Frogs: Silver: Charlie


End file.
